Dinner at the Country Home

We had a very dignified dinner affair at the country home (i.e. our apartment in Brooklyn, which is enormous in comparison to Nikki and Lauren's shoebox in Manhattan) a few weekends ago.

The menu:
Rosemary and thyme roasted chicken - made by me
Salad - Ursy
Potato Gratin - Lauren
Cupcakes - bought (ahem ahem) by Nikki

I used to scared of whipping up a roast chicken...do i have what it takes to produce a juicy and succulent bird that is both tasty and aesthetically pleasing? But, turns out it's really not so hard at all. The key is to constantly baste the chicken with the juices that start coming out of the meat while it's cooking. This roast chicken recipe is from the Bon Appetit cookbook, with a few of my own variations:
1 whole chicken, quartered (quartered chicken is easier to deal with than a whole chicken)
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 tablespoon thyme
olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2 bay leaves
salt
pepper

for gravy:
1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar
1 inch-wide piece of butter
handful of parsley, chopped

separate the skin from the meat, rub the salt, pepper on the meat, underneath the skin
stuff portions of the rosemary, thyme and broken up bay leaves underneath the skin
Spread olive oil and lemon juice over the chicken
Bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting the chicken every 10 minutes or so.

For the gravy:
heat the balsamic vinegar over medium heat until it has been reduced to half the amount of the original liquid, combine with chicken juices from the roasting pan and butter and boil for about another 10 minutes or so. Add the chopped parsley at the end.










The cupcakes Nikki brought are from Buttercup Bakery, which is owned by the same owners as Magnolia Bakery. The cupcakes are delicious, although don't try to microwave the cupcakes. I tried to warm up one a few days after our dinner and after about 20 seconds in the microwave, the frosting completely melted off the cupcake and was shellacked to the glass plate. Oy, what a nightmare.